Authors: Meir Shalev
Two She-Bears (26 page)
Alice didn't come to all family events and get-togethers, but when she did deign to come, I always enjoyed seeing and talking to her. She aged well and continued to look good after her English captain died, ever elegant and thin but with good meat on her, not one of those skinny emaciated old ladies or the fat flabby type, but a sort of gladiola. But then, at Eitan's and my wedding, when she congratulated me and said “Good choice” and air-kissed my cheeks, I unthinkingly put my hand on her hip, like Eitan would put his hand on my “hippy” and say, “How good to touch you, my love.”
So, absentmindedly, I put my hand on Alice's hip, and maybe absentmindedly on purpose, because I wanted to feel the flesh that my husband liked so much and see if it still had some of that magic. I touched her, and apparently without thinking I also massaged her gently, and before I realized what I was doing and feeling, she smiled: “I know that touch. It's good that a woman resembles her man.” And joked: “Watch out, Ruta, don't you be the guy I take home from this wedding.” And I joked too: “I'm not sure I would object,” and I felt so polished and mature and so much like her, no longer the unwanted youth but the woman who waited inside and now, at last, emerges from the cocoon. You know, with many people, not all but many, there's someone like that inside, but not everyone gets to come out and spread her wings.
And then I saw Dalia staring at us. I'm sure she didn't hear anything, but she hated what she saw. She weighed twenty kilos more than Alice and never stopped getting angry and blaming her for everything. I've never in my life seen a woman so jealous of her mother, of how she takes care of herself, of her self-confidence, of her not giving a fig what anyone else thinks. One day she even said, “She couldn't give me a few of her genes? That bitch that I call Mommy?”
“She did offer them to you,” said Dovik, “but you didn't want them. You panicked.”
“My mother looks really good,” she went on, “well preserved, but it's her evil egotism that preserves her.” And she took another careful sip of
limoncello
and added: “She's pickled in hemlock.”
Nice expression, “pickled in hemlock,” bully for Dalia. It annoyed me that she came up with it and not me. Bad enough that Eitan instead of me said “fortyward” and Ofer “in your humble opinion,” but Dalia? How does she even know the word “hemlock”? Annoying. Whatever. A few years ago Alice died and we went, Dalia and Dovik and I, to her funeral. Not that I'm crazy about funerals, as you can understand, but I wanted to see if there'd be any other Ethans there whom she collected at other weddings. Maybe I'll take one as an inheritance. There weren't, and her Ethan and mine wasn't there either. He didn't come, nor had he shown any interest the previous day when I told him she had died.
I remember every detail: I went down to the nursery, stood before him. He stopped, a fifty-kilo sack of gravel resting in his arms like a fat tired child.
I said, “You remember Alice, Dalia's mother?”
He didn't reply. Hugged the sack in silence.
“She died.”
He didn't respond. Moved aside, walked right past me.
I followed him. “Alice, who took you home from Dalia and Dovik's wedding.”
He said nothing. So much strength built up in those embracing arms, carrying such a load with such ease.
“So she's dead, you hear me?”
He didn't answer.
I said, “Ethan, we're going to her funeral. Why don't you wash up and get dressed and come with us? I think she's entitled to that.”
He laid down the sack next to the sacks he had already moved and went back to get another. I looked at him and didn't see the slightest hint of change in his expression. He wore the same look he'd worn since the disaster. Not angry, not worried, definitely not happy, but not sad. A face like a curtain. Not opaque, not transparent. So that was that, he kept serving out his sentence, his hard labor, and I represented him at her funeral. She was entitled. She really was good to him and taught him things that were good for me later on: to cook for me, to serve me, to keep me interested, to make me laugh, to touch me, where and when and how. There are those who will tell you that every woman is different, it takes all kinds, this one with butterfly kisses and the other with vigorous squeezes, that one with “don't stop” and the other with “wait a second” every half minute, and everyone with her own “here” and “there.” But overall we're also pretty similar, Varda; let me put it this way: nobody ever had an orgasm from someone stroking her knee.
Did I see right? You smiled? You're even laughing. Very good. Now I have recorded proof that I can still make someone laugh. I myself have no trouble laughing, but only if I'm surprised. For a moment I forget that I'm sad, and then, a second after I laugh, it hurts. Like the joke about the guy in the forest, everyone around him lying there dead, and he's the only one alive but with a knife stuck in his belly. Okay, let's drop it before I start crying from too much laughter.
NETA AND THE ANGEL OF DEATH
A Story for Neta Tavori from His Mother After His Death
Once there was a boy and his name was Neta.
When Neta was four he started to ask me questions:
“Why is there darkness only at night, and where does it go in the daytime?”
And “What's the difference between ânot a thing' and ânothing'?”
And “When will I have a little sister already?”
And “Who will look more like her: me or you or Abba?”
And “Why doesn't Grandpa Ze'ev have a wife like Abba has you and Uncle Dovik has Dalia?”
I answered all his questions with the greatest of ease.
But I thought a little more about the last question, and I thought a little more, and some more.
And finally I answered: “Grandpa Ze'ev once had a wife. She was called Grandma Ruth.”
Neta went to Grandpa Ze'ev: “Grandpa?”
“Yes, Neta?”
“Where's your wife called Grandma Ruth?”
“Angelofdeath took her,” said Grandpa Ze'ev.
Neta asked, “So now she's his wife?”
“Enough, Neta,” said Grandpa Ze'ev. “There are things we shouldn't talk about and you ask too many questions.”
The next day, on the way to school, Neta asked his father who Angelofdeath was.
“Angelo who?” asked Abba.
“Angelofdeath,” said Neta.
“I have no idea,” said Abba. “And I don't know that name.”
“Grandpa Ze'ev said that Angelofdeath took Grandma Ruth,” said Neta.
“Ahâ¦,” said Abba, “he meant the Angel of Death. That's the angel who takes people when it's the time for them to die.”
Neta was pleased. “An angel? With big white wings? He takes them to fly with him?”
“No,” said Abba. “The Angel of Death has no wings, for sure not white ones. He has a great big scythe and a black robe and a big black cowl that hides his face.”
“If he has no wings, then how does he fly?”
“He doesn't fly,” said Abba. “He appears. Suddenly he appears, and no one sees and no one knows, only the one that he takes.”
“I wish he would appear here too,” said Neta. “I really want to see his robe and cowl and scythe.”
“Enough of that talk!” I got angry. “There are things we don't talk about and you ask too many questions.”
“So what should we talk about?” asked Neta.
“Soon it will be your birthday,” I said. “Maybe tell us what presents you would like?”
“Will you give me what I ask for?” asked Neta.
“If you ask for an elephant, no,” said Abba.
“Good,” said Neta. “I want a great big scythe, a long black robe, and a big black cowl.”
I was not happy with his request, but Abba said, “I promised, and a man has to keep his promises.”
He bought black cloth and sewed him a cowl and robe.
And Grandpa Ze'ev took the old rusty scythe from the shed and cleaned it up. And on Saturday we had a birthday party for Neta and gave him the present.
Neta put on the robe,
Covered his head with the cowl,
Looked in the mirror and said to himself:
“Wow, the Angel of Death!”
He took the scythe in his hand,
And went out into the street,
And when he saw people
He began to run and chase them.
They were all afraid
They all ran away
They all shouted:
“Mommy⦔ and “Angelofdeath⦔
“He's going to take us⦔
And “We're all going to die!”
Neta laid the scythe on the ground, took off the cowl and the robe:
“Sorry, folks,
It was only a joke.
Please relax, dear madam,
And sir, you may breathe free,
I'm not the Angel of Death, I'm only me.”
And he went out like that the next day and the day after that.
And the day after that and the next day too.
And on the fifth day the people no longer ran away.
And by the sixth day they were smiling, and on the seventhâ
Because the Angel of Death also works on Shabbatâ
They all laughed:
“He's not the Angel of Death at all, he's only he.”
But on Sunday when Neta went out,
Hooded and scythed and totally robed,
Whom did he meet in a robe and a hood?
Absolutely rightâ
The actual Angel of Death!
“Come here, little boy,” he said to Neta, in a whisper.
Because that is the voice of the Angel of Deathâ
Like the whisper of a snake.
“A little closer, don't be afraid,
Closerâ¦closerâ¦
Enough, now stop.
And explainâwhat's going on here?”
“It's just a game,” Neta said.
“I'm just playing now,
It's great that you came,
We can play together.”
“Play together?” whispered the Angel of Death. “You and me? You're dying to play, I can see.”
“For sure,” said Neta, “we'll play, we'll dress up, it's really fun.”
“I don't play games,” said the Angel of Death, “not together and not alone.”
And he got angry: “And now, because of you, people don't take me seriously.”
And he complained: “They think I'm only a boy who masqueraded as me without permission.
“And now excuse me, Neta, I have a lot of work to do.”
“Hey,” said Neta,
“You know my name?”
“Of course,” said the Angel of Death.
“I know names,
And I know dates,
And I know addresses,
This address too.”
“How come?” asked Neta.
“I have been here before and I am a very organized angel.
So don't do anything else foolish, and till next time, goodbye and see you again.”
And he disappeared,
As if he were never there,
And would never be again.
And only the words remained:
“Next time,”
And “been here before,”
And “Neta,”
And “see you again.”
THE BIRTH
A few days before the birth two women came to the moshava, got down from the wagon that had slowly made its way through the swamps, and continued on foot through the fields.
At first they looked like a large dot and a small dot, and then like two human figures, an adult and a child, to judge from their size, or two adults, to judge from their pace, and finally turned out to be two middle-aged women, one tall and skinny and broad-shouldered and the other small and chubby, and despite their very different clothes, skin tone, walk, and bodiesâthe bigger one was the mother of the woman giving birth, and the smaller was a Bedouin midwife from Wadi al-Tamasihâthey resembled each other: both were jolly and talkative, both had thick hands and eyes spaced widely apart. Clearly the trip and its purpose had drawn the two women close, and they exchanged looks and gestures and burst into shared laughter that an outside observer would find inexplicable and secretive.
Neither of them, as it turned out, was needed. For although this was a first child, the birth went easily and quickly, as if the mother had known that the real suffering would come only later. She didn't even scream. She only moaned from the labor, and sweat poured from her forehead. Perhaps she wanted no one to hear her and realize what was happening. And perhaps she didn't feel pain because she, like her husband, knew the child wasn't his, and she was filled with a deathly fear that suppressed all other feeling.
She didn't think about the sex of the newborn, because she was sure it would be female, or about its health and weight or about becoming a mother but only about him, her husband, and what he would do now.
With a final moan the baby slid into the hands of the midwife, and the new grandmother smiled and said, “Mazal tov, Ruth. You were right, it's a girl. You have to pick a name for her.” And Ruth, the mother, said, “I haven't thought about a name yet, Mama,” and suddenly whispered, “No, not yet, the name can wait,” and called out, “She shouldn't cry yet, Mama, she shouldn't scream! The midwife shouldn't slap her!”
But the midwife's experienced hand had already landed, automatically, on the tiny buttocks, and the baby girl burst into the first cry of a newborn, which nothing can stop or weaken, and a moment after her voice was heard came a mighty blow, and the door was nearly knocked off its hinges from the weight and force of the woman's husband, who broke into the room.
The light of day broke in as well, outlining his dark body in the bright rectangle of the doorway, shining between his sturdy legs. His long shadow quivered on the wall above the bed.
“You don't have to barge in like that,” said Ruth's alarmed mother. “In a few minutes we'd have invited you in.”
And even as her heart told her it wasn't so, her mouth spoke the words that are always spoken: “Mazal tov, Ze'ev, you have a new daughter.”
Ze'evâthat was the name of Ruth's husbandâstrode forward, and Ruth let out a terrible cry: “Give her to me! Give her to me!” and despite her pain sat on the bed and extended her arms. The midwife, who had already prepared a bowl of hot water and a wet diaper and a dry diaper, intending to clean and wipe and wrap, was frightened and handed her the baby as she was, dripping blood and birth fluids. But Ze'ev strode onward, grabbed the baby's tiny thigh and snatched her away. And the little one, dangling upside down from his hand, fell silent at once, and a moment later burst out crying.
With the baby in his hand, Ze'ev turned and went out into the yard. His mother-in-law, who knew nothing and did not understand what was happening, hurried after him, calling out: “What are you doing? You don't hold a baby that way.” She raised her voice to a shout: “The baby has to nurse, give her back to her mother!”
She was big and quick. In three paces she caught up with him and grabbed the edge of his coat, but Ze'ev whirled backward and shoved her to the ground and screamed one terrible scream: “No!”
He went to the shed at the edge of the yard, the shed where for months he had slept alone, and placed the shrieking baby on his bed. He didn't throw or drop her, but set her down softly and gently, the way a father sets down his baby. But he didn't set her down that way out of fatherly love, but so she would not be harmed or injured, for he had designed a different fate for her during the long nights when he lay on that same bed, awake and hateful and planning revenge.
The baby shrieked. Ze'ev covered her and opened a tin box he had prepared before the birth, taking out bread and olives, a tomato and hard salty cheese, the long-lasting kind that is soaked in water, and set them on a wooden board.
He also had two jugs filled with drinking water, some pita bread, vegetables, cans of sardines and meat, a jar of tahini, and a bottle of olive oil. All these he had prepared in advance, so he would not have to leave that place, and would have enough to eat.
He picked up his rifle and wooden club, came out of the shed, locked the door, and sat down on a large wooden chest he had put there a few days earlier. No one at the time had understood its significance and no one knew what was inside, but now Ze'ev took out a big embroidered pillow and placed it on the chest, a pillow festooned with embroidered birds and flowers. Colorful and eye-catching, a pillow prepared for long and comfortable sitting.
It was a day in spring. Ze'ev leaned the rifle and the club beside him, placed the wooden board on his lap, sat and ate and drank. The sun warmed his face, the air was aromatic with seasonal blooming, and the baby, inside the shed, shrieked and cried. The wooden walls of the shed did not muffle her voice, because the sound of a shrieking baby, hungry for food and human touch, is a piercing sound that can be heard even from afar.
Ruth's mother, back on her feet, paced around in the yard, helplessly wringing her hands, accosting him again: “What are you doing, Ze'ev? What's going on? These are your baby and your wife, what's going on?” She fell silent for a moment, and then went on: “The baby needs to nurse. She needs her mother⦔ And suddenly she grabbed his hand and pulled it and shouted: “Get up! Open up that shed now! I want to take her to her mother, this is my granddaughter. Do you hear me?!”
Ze'ev took the wooden board from his lap, put it aside, stood up, again threw his mother-in-law to the ground, and sat down on the embroidered pillow.
“That's right! This is your granddaughter!” he shouted. “But she's not my daughter! She's the daughter of another man! The child of adultery! A bastard!”
“She's only a baby, she's not to blame. What did a newborn baby do to you? First let her nurse and eat, and then we'll work out all the problems.”
“She's the child of a whore. She will scream and cry here. And you, and your daughter, and the whole moshava, will all know why and wherefore.”
He filled his mouth with bread and cheese, took bites of olive and hot pepper, and chewed, and the mother got up, rushed out into the street, ran up and down, and shouted, “Help! Help me! He kidnapped the baby!”
She was answered by Ruth's screaming from inside the house, and several people hurried over and came with her into the yard. But when they saw Ze'ev Tavori sitting in front of the shed with his rifle, they went back to their homes. She again went into the street, ran shouting all the way down and back, and no one came to her aid. Here and there a face could be seen peeking from drawn curtains, here and there a door was shut, a back was turned. She hurried to the neighbor and found him in the cowshed, feeding and stroking a lovely Dutch calf born to a cow he had purchased at a bargain price, so he said, a few months earlier, arousing the envy of the entire moshava.
“Come quick!” she cried, “Ruth gave birth to a girl and Ze'ev took her. He went crazy. He locked her in the shed and won't let her nurse from her mother.”
But the neighbor said to her, “Mazal tov. But we don't stick the nose of one family into the affairs of another family.”
“I beg of you! He hit me and he is killing his daughter,” she shouted. “She has to nurse. This way she'll die.”
“Are you so sure it's his daughter?” asked the neighbor.
Her mouth went mute. Her knees buckled. With difficulty she managed to retrace her steps, and Ze'ev grabbed her by the arm, led her to the house, pushed her inside at her daughter, dragged the midwife outside, and banished her in Arabic: “Fly home!” And she fled.
Ze'ev locked the two doors of the house and all the windows and returned to the shed. He sat on the chest, his rifle in his hand and his club beside him, he sat by the door and waited.
That crying, which no one imagined would last a full week, was heard by the whole moshava. It heard, and hushed. People thought she would cry for a day or two until Ze'ev came to his senses and returned her to her mother. But the baby cried and cried, day after day, one day and two days and four and five, and the moshava heard and hushed, kept quiet and did not forget.
And also saw: the man sitting on the big chest, the embroidered pillow, the rifle and the club, the locked door. Saw, heard, kept quiet, and did not forget. From inside the shed came the screams of the hungry baby, in desperate need of its mother's milk and arms and warmth, and from the house came the crying and shouting of the young mother. At one point she burst out of the house, ran to her husband to attack him, and hit him, but he stood up and grabbed her by the back of the neck and dragged her to the house, weakened and pained by the birth and the fear and the guilt. No one from the moshava came to help her. She went into the house and sank into a deep sleep.
The babyâshe was unnamedâscreamed and screamed. The moshavaâwhich had a name and has one to this dayâheard and hushed. But the cries of hunger and dying attracted the attention of the jaybirds living there.
These birds, denizens of the nearby woods, had long since discovered the benefits of proximity to humans and, being bold and impudent, began visiting the new moshava, on the lookout for leftover food and fruit to steal, and as the trees planted by people's homes grew taller, the birds built nests in them and raised a new generation. In no time they stopped fearing anyone and behaved like they owned the place: they shrieked, stole, bothered dogs and people, and learned as jaybirds do to imitate human screams, the wailing of cats, barking and whistling, and enjoyed the tumult they wrought.
Now several of them arrived, perched in a nearby tree, listened to the screams of the baby, and after about half an hour began mimicking her voice. First, as if testing their strength, and then with complete accuracy. A few children threw stones at them, but they flitted from tree to tree, dodging every throw, shrieking the shrieks of the baby, so there was no escaping them. It seemed like she was screaming from every rooftop and treetopâand the moshava heard and hushed.
On the third day, when the jaybirds came back and shrieked, Ze'ev shouldered his rifle and picked off two of them with two quick, precise shots. All their comrades flew off in a panic, and when they calmed down and returned he shot two more, and the rest of the jaybirds went away and did not return. From then on, all that could be heard were the screams of the dying baby in the shed, becoming ever weaker. On Shabbat afternoon, five days after the birth, they were replaced by a constant, feeble wailing, and when this too was heard no longer, the people of the moshava gathered near the fence and waited for new developments. Until that moment they had avoided the house and the street, and only one person had been there all along, that same neighbor, owner of the superb Dutch milk cow and the tender calf, who brought Ze'ev pots of hot tea and even pieces of cake, sat beside him like a dog beside his master, and kept watch while he dozed off for a few minutes or answered nature's call.
The screams came to an end very slowly, and the moshava gradually fell silent. Ze'ev, his rifle on his lap, sat on his embroidered pillow with his eyes closed, the neighbor by his side, surveying the scene, the people in the street, some of them slowing their pace and some stopping and looking and waiting. A week had gone by, and it was clear to them that the horror would be over at any moment.
The sun came up, shortening the shadow of the house on the wall of the shed, and when its rays struck his eyelids Ze'ev rose, went to the animals' trough, and washed his face. He sat back down, and after half an hour had passed with no sound from the baby, he stood, took out the key, and unlocked the door and opened it. Before he could enter, one big final scream was heard. The jaybirds answered it from the woods in a terrible chorus of infant voices, screams came too from among the crowd, people shifted in place, but no one stepped forward and no one said a word.
For a moment Ze'ev lurched backward as if he had been struck, but then recovered and walked in. After a few minutes he came out, carrying a sack in his right hand and in his left a shovel. He got on his horse and disappeared. After an hour he returned, went into his house while ignoring the crowd, seized Ruth's mother by the arm and removed her from the house.
“Go home,” he told her. “And you'd best keep quiet, so they won't know back there too what kind of daughter you raised.”
Ruth sat on the bed, didn't budge and didn't speak. After eating, Ze'ev went out to work and that night moved his bed from the shed to the house, set it in the kitchen, lay down, and waited.
For a whole year the two lived in the same house, slept there night after night, and didn't say a word to each other. Twelve months, day after day, Ze'ev rose before Ruth, prepared her breakfast of sliced vegetables, a piece of bread, olives and cheese, a hard-boiled egg, sometimes he even opened a can of sardines, left it on the table, and went to work. And every evening, when he finished his work, he came home, cleaned the kitchen, tidied the house, and once a week washed the floor. And every day Ruth left the house, and wherever someone was plowing or digging or boring a hole, she stopped and looked. Perhaps this was where her husband had buried her daughter.
A year went by, until one night Ze'ev got out of his bed, entered Ruth's room and her bed, took off his nightshirt and hers. She did not move a muscle or say a word. That same night she became pregnant with their elder son, and two years later with another, two boys who grew up and hurried to leave home as soon as they were old enough to do so. One of them was my father, who died young, when I was a little girl.
To those who wonder how I could write such a horrible story, let me say this: If I had made it all up you could ask me that question. If this horrible story had been the product of my imagination, it would have been easier to write it. But this horrible story is a true story; Ze'ev is my grandfather and Ruth my grandmother; that's the answer.
